We are what we say we are21/07/2008 11:11 am

At school, I was hopeless at Maths. Both my older brothers were also bad at Maths. They were good at English, and so was I. “We’re the kind of family that’s good with words and bad with numbers” I used to say. I continued to fail at Maths and excel at English all through my school career, and still glaze over when I have to deal with something as basic as a tax return.

I had no way of knowing it at the time, but I talked myself out of becoming numerate and could just as easily have talked myself into it. Psychologists call it ‘attribution theory’ – the way we explain ourselves to ourselves – and its power over our beliefs and then our future actions is remarkable.

It works like this. ‘Attribution’ just means ‘the way we explain how things turn out’, and there are two ways of doing it:

1. With an internal attribution or an external attribution – in other words, you explain it by thinking it’s caused by something internal about yourself (“I’m the kind of person who’s good at English and bad at Maths”)
2. With something external, relating to other people or the situation (“My Maths teacher is boring and hates me, but Mrs Bennet in the English department is a great teacher”)

Psychologists have shown that ‘internal’ attribution is the one that changes our thoughts and behaviour – we literally become what we say we are, of, very often, what someone else says we are. Teachers who wrote “you are good at Maths” or “you’re obviously a hard worker” on their students papers consistently saw greater improvement and higher scores than teachers who wrote either could- try- harder comments such as “you should be doing better than this” or even self-esteem raising but non-specific comments such “well done”!” or “”I’m pleased with your progress”.

Why? Because when our brains say “I did well on that test” it has to come up with an explanation. If the explanation is a good teacher, or because I had to pass this test to get into college, the good result is temporary and dependent on having the same good teacher or a specific goal. If, however, the brain replies “because I’m the kind of person who’s good at Maths/who works hard for tests to make sure she passes them” the behaviour becomes ingrained – it’s there for good.

The most powerful way to use attribution theory is on ourselves (if nothing else, you will now be constantly aware of how much internal and external attribution you do), and we’ve seen already how well it works on kids. But it works on everyone else, too.

If your partner flies off the handle and yells at you or the kids, don’t yell back and tell him what a pig he is – it will only reinforce his belief that yelling and being pig-like is what he does. Wait until he calms down and say how hurt you were by it, and that you know it must hurt him too “because I know you’re not the kind of person who wants to upset us. I know your intentions are always good”.

And those friends who never call and always get you to do all the running? Try telling them what considerate people they are. Tell them that one of the things you most admire about them is the way they make an effort with their friends, and check in on them regularly, that they’re the kind of person who notices and remembers things. No, they wont think you’re being sarcastic – people rarely realise how hopeless they are at this kind of stuff, and they will like the way they look through your eyes. So much so, that that’s what they’ll become.

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